site.btaPresident Sakellaropoulou Tasks Court of Audit President Sarmas with Forming Caretaker Cabinet

President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou met Court of Audit President Ioannis Sarmas on Wednesday and appointed him as the prime minister of a caretaker government that will lead Greece to a repeat round of elections on June 25, in accordance with the Constitution, ANA-MPA reported.

Earlier, the president met with the leaders of the political parties elected to parliament in the May 21 elections, who formally confirmed their inability to form a government. In a fast-track procedure, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the first political force New Democracy, and Nikos Androulakis, leader of PASOK, which came third in the elections, returned the mandates, while Alexis Tsipras, leader of SYRIZA, which came second in the elections, did not accept the mandate.

Addressing Sarmas, Sakellaropoulou said that she had already informed the party leaders that she intended to propose him, among the chief justices of the three supreme courts in Greece, giving him the task of forming a government that will carry out the elections.

The Court of Audit president thanked President Sakellaropoullou, stressing that it was a great honour, adding that it was "my constitutional obligation to accept and also my duty as a citizen."

Sarmas is to be sworn in as caretaker prime minister at the presidential mansion on Thursday, around noon.

The procedure for giving the mandate to the three first parties was a formality insofar as it became clear immediately after the elections that New Democracy, which won the elections convincingly on Sunday, would seek an absolute majority through new elections, which will now be held under a different electoral system that gives extra seats in parliament to the largest political force.